Affiliate Classroom Blog

New Google Search Engine in China…

Thursday, January 26th, 2006 at 2:08 pm by Anik Singal

Google launches a new search engine in China to gain access to their over 100 million searchers. However, the catch is that they will have to censor the results according to rules set by the Chinese government.

Google will censor searches related to, but not limited to:

- Human rights
- Tibet
- The word “democracy”
- and pretty much any other topic sensitive to Beijing

MSN reported that within minutes of launching, Google was already finding themselves blocking tons of websites related to the exact topics that were censored.

Google has been known to have the motto “Don’t be evil.” Given that, they’re coming under quite a bit of heat for having agreed to this deal.

But, let’s face it - 100 million searchers!

For the entire article, click here…

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Announcing the Stop Badware Coalition

Thursday, January 26th, 2006 at 10:14 am by Helen Montgomery, AC Magazine

Here’s some good news for affiliates everywhere. With funding from Google, Lenovo Group, and Sun Microsystems, Harvard and Oxford Universities have teamed up to fight “badware” - spyware, adware, and parasiteware.

The purpose of StopBadware.org is to expose companies that create or use spyware, adware, and parasiteware to the cold, critical light of day. So far the “brain trust” at the Stop badware Coalition has been praised by affiliate management consultant Shawn Collins, as well as Wayne Porter, Senior Director of Greynet Research at FaceTime Security Labs and long-time affiliate advocate and crusader against evil spyware.

Click here to check out the StopBadware.org website. And if you’ve had your computer - or commissions - trashed, stolen, hosed, or hijacked by evil software, make sure you tell your story at the Stop Badware site.

You can also get involved by joining the Stop Badware community and helping with the investigative process. If nothing else, simply sign up for the Stop Badware newsletter to get new badware reports.

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“Linkbaiting” Case Study From Search Engine Watch

Thursday, January 26th, 2006 at 7:18 am by Helen Montgomery, AC Magazine

Search Engine Journal’s Loren Baker has written up a case study on “linkbaiting.” According to Baker’s interesting post:

“Link baiting (or linkbaiting) is the emerging art of building a useful tool, writing an interesting article, or running a newsworthy ‘event’ on a web site which naturally attracts links.”

The case study cites examples of linkbaiting:

“…running a contest which includes multiple sites (such as blog contests or niche site award contests), testing a new advertising format… and throwing a wrench into a breaking or popular news story via attacks, a new spin, or a dash of humor. If anything, the social web and blogosphere have made linkbaiting a reality which only existed for a select few who already enjoyed broad reach and incredible viral marketing skills years ago.”

In other words, linkbaiting is simply viral marketing that attracts backlinks quickly - something that’s an integral part of the business model we use for our step-by-step virtual training in Affiliate Classroom.

The case study goes on to explain how Search Engine Journal organized a “Best Search Engine Blogs” contest that generated tons of traffic - and got backlinks from all over the web, including the blog of Matt Cutts, Senior Google Engineer.

What can affiliates learn from this case study? How about a clever way to generate plenty of incoming links and targeted traffic - without investing anything more than time? It’s also a great strategy for bloggers who need to generate buzz - and gets links - from sites outside the blogsphere.

Matt Cutts even came up with some terrific examples and creative ideas for linkbaiting.

And if you’ve developed a mailing list or an upsell, you can combine these simple ideas with the more detailed strategies outlined in our November Case Study on “Do Affiliate Marketing Contests Pay Off? YES!” available in our members only training center. In it we explain how our recent Thanksgiving Competition generated a 15% sustained sales increase - and 6 new joint venture strategic partnerships - for very low cost.

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